


The Brightest Firefly in My Jar

by traincar



Category: Inception (2010), The Lookout (2007)
Genre: Brain Damage, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 00:30:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2487818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traincar/pseuds/traincar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lookout AU: Before he was Arthur, he was Chris Pratt. He is in Paris with a beautiful French woman who knows his name and loves him and all he thinks of is the way Eames looked at him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Brightest Firefly in My Jar

Before he was Arthur, he was Chris Pratt.

*

Christopher Arthur Pratt.

And now he goes by Arthur. You can’t really blame him for wanting to be disassociated with the fucked-up guy who shot a man straight through the chest and assisted a bank robbery.

Funny how Arthur blames himself, regardless. Chris Pratt, before, was pretty awesome.

*

After the incident, he left Lewis.

It might not have been the right thing to do at the time, but he didn’t know any better. Maybe Lewis just wanted him to go – he’d brought enough trouble with him, after all.

“You take care of yourself,” Lewis had told him, fingers brushing over the labels by the door. “I’ll leave these here,” he whispered in a moment of often unseen softness. “In case you come back.”

He doesn’t.

*

When he first meets Dom, he leaves him in the dark. It isn’t exactly casual conversation to introduce yourself through your felonies. Then again, Dom was never really big on small talk.

Mal, on the other hand…

“You have a scar on your arm,” she whispers, fingers tracing over it. “Will you tell me what happened?” She does not meet his eyes, just loops nonsensical patterns over the network of scar tissue and Arthur shivers.

He tells her everything, mostly.

Mal looks up, and Arthur tries very hard to keep his words in his mouth or he’ll screw this all up. “My lips are sealed,” she whispers, bringing a finger to her mouth, pink and glossy, bubblegum lips, and just like that, she rises. “Dom, let’s go out to a nice restaurant this evening. My father has been dying to speak with you.”

She turns, the smile on her face fleeting and equally lovely. “Will you join us, Arthur?”

*

Mal speaks in soft tones, always a whisper but never quiet, and Arthur easily becomes transfixed by her. She keeps herself locked up, never tells you everything but always tells you something, and Arthur thinks she might be the most beautiful and frustrating puzzle he’s ever known.

“Do you dream, Arthur?” Mal asks this for no reason at all. He is sitting on the couch dictating Frost poems to Dom, because Dom is fascinated by the simple words and the elegant tales and he always wants to teach Arthur something new. Something beautiful.

The first thing Dom taught him was Mal.

“I don’t know,” Arthur says, frowns, because he doesn’t ever think about these things. “Sure, doesn’t everyone?”

And Mal gives him this look, because she knows more than Dom does about what happened. Dom knows Arthur is malleable and can hold a gun. Mal knows these things and more.

“Do you dream, Arthur?” She asks again, a hush hush of lips and tongue and Arthur stares at her mouth, hears Dom’s pencil scratching against the paper.

“If I do, I don’t ever remember them,” he admits, and that’s all Mal needs to hear.

“Arthur, I would like to show you something.”

*

Mal tells him to lie down, so he does, and part of his mind wonders if she’s going to kiss him, because when a woman wants you to lie down in her bed and has bubblegum lips and soft eyes, they kiss you. But Mal just leans over him and combs her fingers through his hair once, trailing her hand downward to his wrist. She takes it in her hands, cradles it in one and holds the needle steady in the other.

“Trust me,” is all she says before she sets up the PASIV and Arthur shuts his eyes.

*

*

*

He does not dream.

*

When Arthur wakes, it’s as if he merely blinked, extended darkness behind his eyelids and nothing more, because Mal is still next to the bed and the sun is still watching him from the window and nothing’s changed at all.

“What did you dream of?” She asks softly, always curious, and Arthur wonders if that fascination is reserved for him.

“I didn’t,” Arthur says, wonders if this is all wrong, because Mal’s face changes, a subtle twitch of her cheek.

“Sleep, then,” she says, pressing a kiss to his forehead before finding Dom.

*

“He cannot construct his own dreams naturally,” Mal whispers.

“Then we need to teach him. We’ll put him in our dreams and let him understand the landscapes first, give him the technical aspects, then let him see what he can do with that information.”

Arthur presses his ear to the door, feels like a misbehaving child, but he needs to know if there’s something wrong with him. Moreso than he already knows, that is.

“He is perfect for this,” Mal says. “I know he is. He is soft, Dom. We need someone like him. I love him.”

“You love everyone, Mal,” Dom counters, and Arthur doesn’t doubt this. But Mal laughs, a high titter and he can picture the curve of her neck, dark and sloping.

“Yes, but he is different, Dom. He is beautiful. I want Eames to meet him. Do you think he will come visit?” She huffs. “He never visits. We do six jobs in a row and nearly get killed by that crazy Volesto man and he suddenly has no time for us.”

Arthur pulls away from the door, climbs back into bed and rubs at the raw spot on the inside of his arm. Eames, he thinks, and sleeps.

*

Eames is not as easy to get close to as Mal.

He is brash and unpredictable and he has a deep, throaty laugh that Arthur falls in love with immediately. But he does not fall in love with Eames, he tells himself. He won’t.

Mal takes him through her dream alone, first. Eames stares at him curiously for a very long time before Arthur shuts his eyes.

They are in Paris.

He is in Paris.

He is in Paris with a beautiful French woman who knows his name and loves him and all he thinks of is the way Eames looked at him.

And Arthur panics, because this isn’t real, and how will he know if he’s awake, and how will he know if he’s dead, and how will he –

“Ssh, Arthur. Isn’t it beautiful here?” Mal leans in, their noses brushing together and she smells like daisies, like a five year old girl in a field of flowers with the sun at her back and the world at her fingertips, and Arthur drowns in it, in her.

And then they wake up. And that’s it.

*

After that, he goes into Dom’s dream. Dom dreams in shades. He builds the most extraordinary buildings but never finishes them, leaves parts undone and messy and cloudy, like a haze over the whole world and yet it still feels real. It’s dreamy almost, nothing ever in full color, just a sweeping rush of architecture and fog.

Dom stands next to him, Mal at his side, and says, “build.”

He doesn’t. He can’t.

He stands and stares hopelessly, and Mal lets go of Dom’s hand and holds Arthur’s instead, fingers warm between his. “Build, Arthur,” she coos.

And he does.

*

Arthur builds eclectically, in nonlinear ways. His buildings are skewed but strong, triangular bases with rhombus tops and spurts of color. Nothing in his architecture makes sense. It shouldn’t be possible for things to be built this way and for people to receive it naturally.

Not people. Projections, Dom explains.

When a projection senses an intrusion, they turn on you. Dom has enough time to explain this, very briefly, before they are after them.

Dom’s projections do not like Arthur’s buildings. They will kill him, Dom says. And Mal is suddenly screaming “WAKE HIM UP” and Arthur’s heart seizes and then he’s in bed.

He wakes calmly.

Mal trembles next to him, shivers, and Arthur stares.

*

Eames’s dream nearly destroys him.

They are in upstate New York. It’s midday, sun shining, people strolling happily. Eames says “I’ll go easy on you” and Arthur hates him for it.

Eames dreams in vibrant hues and reflections. Every building strong, structured, mirrored so that the whole world is lit up, somehow. Arthur builds next to a skyscraper, a slanted storefront of muted greens, and just like that, the projections are onto him.

“Dom should have taught you this first,” Eames says, people running for the both of them. Arthur doesn’t know what’s going to happen. He realizes, quite consciously, that’s he afraid.

Eames shouts over the noise of them. “You’re going to die, Arthur!” And Arthur’s breath hitches. “But you’ll wake up, all right, darling? This is a dream!” There’s a huge surge of panic that takes him by force and Eames keeps yelling. “You die, you wake up! Do you understand?”

Arthur nods a second before they get him.

Someone grabs at his arm. Another at his leg and he lands face first on the ground. He screams, a wave of terror threatening to drown him because he’s been here before, a helicopter whirring above him, blood on his face, the whole world smashed and broken. They crush him, people clawing and pushing and the weight is too much and I can’t breathe they’re crushingmeI’mgoingtodie Eames Ea-

He wakes up screaming, sobbing, choking on his own breath and Mal shouts. “Why did you do that to him, Eames? He wasn’t ready!” and Eames apologizes, and Arthur’s never heard him sound more genuine, and he clutches at the sheets and cries because he was dying. And Dom is standing in the corner, worriedly, and Mal is squeezing his hand and leaving because he needs water and Eames sits down next to him and takes Arthur’s face in his hands and he breathes.

“You die, you wake up. It was a dream, you’re fine, darling.”

Arthur’s fingers are digging into Eames’s wrists because he hates him for doing that but he had to learn eventually and Eames is swiping at his cheeks, pulling him into his lap and speaking so quietly that Arthur can’t hear him.

“I’ll give him the water, Mal,” he hears him say, and those same hands tilt his head, help him drink, and Arthur’s still shaking, imaginary blood on his face, in his hair, coating the wound that destroyed Chris Pratt.

For a while, Eames just sits there, the water on the table and his fingers in Arthur’s hair. Arthur imagines Eames is never like this naturally, that this side of Eames is a gift few have received.

This is another part of Eames he falls in love with. But he does not fall in love with Eames.

“First time is never easy for anyone, I don’t think,” Eames speculates, and Arthur wonders if he’s been there, wonders, vaguely, still choking on his own breath, if Eames had anyone to hold him, to tilt his head back, and then wonders why he cares so much anyway.

*

The second time is just as bad.

As is the third, fourth, fifth, and Dom finally cuts in and says, “I don’t think he’s cut out for this. The projections aren’t always so merciful.” And Mal says, “You need to have faith in him. Mr. Eames is here with him and we are having a baby.”

She leans in and kisses him, and Dom is pulled under by the spell of her lips.

A baby, Arthur thinks. What would Mal be with a baby?

*

Arthur forgets to put on socks. It’s a simple mistake – anyone can do it – but Mal asks him purposefully how he reminded himself of these things before. “Labels,” he says, and she spends the entire day printing them out, thick and blue and white-lettered, and Arthur feels better.

He makes his own labels, sticks paper to the back so he can keep them in his bedside table drawer, and reminds himself of the home he has been given here.

_Mal_  he prints out, and then,  _lovely_.

After that, he prints out  _fireflies_.

*

Eames goes away for a little while. Mal insists that he’s stayed longer than he usually does and is far from subtle in her implications that it’s because of Arthur. “He does not understand your injury,” she explains, fingers ghosting over his temple. “He is fascinated by what happened to you and how you dream. Your buildings are structured magnificently. And I think he will fall in love with you, but that will come in time,” she laughs.

They are lying in bed together. Mal’s belly is growing and Dom insists she stay well-rested, but she always brings Arthur to bed with her and they never rest anyway. Not at first, that is. Mal loves to talk to him about _him_. She loves to tell him that he did well, that he is fascinating, beautiful,  _soft_ , always soft, and Arthur can only stare, because he is in love with Mal and she doesn’t even know it.

But he doesn’t love her like that. Never like that. He used to, he thinks, because he was younger then than he is now, and he was a boy and in love with a woman he didn’t know, bubblegum lips.

Mal is his best friend, he thinks. Mal is what Kelly was to him before the crash.

He thinks of her, very briefly, and he still sees Mal’s lips moving but he isn’t listening because  _Kelly_.  _They all died and it’s my fault_  and he reaches up to his face and covers his mouth, holds back a sob.

Sometimes he just cries. There is always a reason.

Mal leans in and tries to hold him, but Arthur turns on his side, can’t bear to look at her because he’ll kill her too, one day. She slides her arm over his waist, fingertips brushing over his chest, and her belly presses against his back, head against his neck and she whispers sweet French to his ear, places a kiss along his spine and Arthur falls asleep still crying.

*

Eames comes back after Philippa is born.

He sits with Arthur in the living room. Philippa is four months old and pink and beautiful, and Mal lets him hold her so long as he’s careful. But right now, he is sitting with Eames on the couch, and that is all.

“Has it improved for you?” Eames asks. “The dreaming?”

“I guess.”

It has and it hasn’t.

Arthur has learned to compose himself better. He doesn’t cry when he wakes up, but sometimes he cries for days afterwards and doesn’t really know why.

Mostly, he writes things down, does research, because when he needs to put things in terms he can understand, he tends to record more in his notebooks, and Dom always refers back to those details appreciatively.

In a matter of days, Dom is well on his way to teaching Arthur how to research more thoroughly. From there, Arthur learns things on his own, escalates the mere idea of research and turns it into something Mal praises him for. He may not always understand certain concepts, but he can record them, document them, and relay the information back.

This is what Dom needs.

“Point man,” Dom says to him one day. “You know enough about all of this to keep us safe. Do you think you could do the same in a dream?”

Arthur nods, and dreams himself up in a three piece suit and Oxfords and feels very much like he’s running a business of crime-laced security guards and secretarial jobs.

And he likes it.

*

Arthur is good at what he does. He goes on his first job when he is twenty three and one half, a boy, cheeks flushed and eyes wide and Mal picks up a crying Philippa and says  _good luck, Arthur_.

She does not come with them. She is tired now, different, but Arthur still loves her the most. Eames comes, though, crouches next to him and rubs his fingers over his wrist. “You watch our backs, I’ll watch yours, darling. Good luck.” He slides the IV in, warm hands an imprint in his mind.

They are outside in a city. Dom needs to find out a secret that could destroy a family business. A monopoly, Mal told him, and the city does not like it. Dom needs the money, so he does not care who he exploits. He is reckless, a dreaming politician, and Arthur loves him.

Eames is the son, bearded and timid, but today he is going to stand up to his father long enough for Dom to crack him and get in.

It is a simple job.

Arthur feels wild, nonetheless. He is on a high, adrenaline rushing through him. He is supposed to wait for music, something that will make him smile, Mal says.

She has sung this to him before,  _sweet Arthur, sleep_ , and he smiles at Eames when he hears it. “I like this song,” he tells him, but Eames is frantic and Arthur is oblivious.

“The  _kick_ , Arthur. We need to move, come on,” he yells, pulling Arthur’s wrist and running.

Arthur’s cheeks hurt from smiling so hard, but when he wakes up, Mal is leaning over him and mirroring his expression.

“I imagine you did as wonderfully as I expected you would,” she beams, and she does not seem to mind that there are strangers in her home and a baby in her arms, because she loves Arthur for what he’s helped accomplish and she tells him just that.

*

Eames comes over more often and Arthur lets him in.

Eames has a wonderful voice, cultured and textured and Arthur falls in love with it.

But he does not fall in love with Eames.

He has his head in Eames’s lap and a blanket over his and Eames has his fingers in his hair and he’s  _okay_.

“Are you ever going to tell me what happened?” He asks softly. Philippa has gone down for a nap. The house is quiet, a breathy lull of nothing that makes Arthur feel safe.

“Car crash,” he says, not sure why it even matters to Eames.

“Oh,” is all he says for a long time, and the sweep of his fingers very nearly pushes Arthur towards sleep. “Do you remember it?”

Arthur opens his eyes, stares up at him and can hear the helicopter’s blades slicing through the air, his face covered in blood, his arm crushed, heart pounding.

Sometimes he just cries. “Yeah,” he chokes out. Eames’s fingers brush deliberately over the tiny line of a scar, following the part of his hair, and Arthur squeezes his eyes shut. “I wanted to show her the fireflies.”

Eames leans down, brushes his lips against Arthur’s and smiles sadly. “I’m sure they were beautiful, darling.”

*

Mal gets sick.

Dom tells Arthur that she is dreaming too much on her own, pushing herself into a world that isn’t even real. It doesn’t make sense to Arthur. He doesn’t understand it, so he goes into her room and takes the IV from her and cries.

He just cries.

“Arthur,” she says.

“Are you sick?” He asks, and Mal beckons for him to come lie down with him, because this is what they do when they are not well. He listens, puts the PASIV down by the bed and curls up next to her, wiping his cheeks because he’s  _crying_  and Mal is sick and he doesn’t know what to do.

“I don’t know,” she says, stroking through his hair. “I want to dream. I don’t want to be here right now.”

“But what about Philippa?”  _What about me?_

“She is a baby. She won’t ever know I was gone.” And it’s true. Mal can dream for hours and weeks and years and Philippa will never know.

“But  _I_  will,” he protests, because he doesn’t want Mal to dream if he’s not there. He loves her, soft eyes, bubblegum lips, he  _loves_  her.

“I know. I’m sorry, Arthur.”

And that’s it.

*

Arthur, like a good point man, does his research.

Mal is depressed. She is unhappy because she has had Philippa, and she does not know what to do with a child, with a family. But it doesn’t make sense to Arthur, because families are happy with a new baby. They buy clothes and toys and laugh and smile and Arthur hasn’t seen Mal do any of these things in a long time.

“My sister wasn’t sad when she had a baby,” Arthur tells Eames, sitting down next to him and leaning in, head against his chest, one leg over both of his. “Mal is sad. She’s sick.”

Eames rests his hand on Arthur’s knee, well-worn jeans beneath his palm. “Mal will be okay. She has a family that loves her.”

Arthur loves her more than anyone. Isn’t that enough to make someone happy?

*

Mal puts herself under the next day, and Arthur doesn’t know what to do. Mal doesn’t love him enough to stay. She doesn’t love  _anyone_  enough to stay. Instead, she just sleeps, and Arthur stays with Eames.

They go to the basement. Dom has another PASIV downstairs, and Arthur wants to dream.

“What do you have in mind?” Eames asks, sitting down across from him.

“I want to show you something.” He does not elaborate. He can’t find the right words for what this is, what it means to him, how it shaped and molded him and destroyed him at the same time.

When they dream, it is dark out.

Arthur is driving a car. The top is down and Eames is sitting next to him in the front seat. “Look up,” Arthur whispers, and Eames listens, tilts his head back and stares, because the sky is dark but the fireflies are not, and they’re creating a universe just for them, hovering celestially no more than five feet above them. Eames reaches up for the constellations, a smile on his face that lights up Arthur’s whole world.

He falls in love with this smile. This is when he falls in love with Eames, too.

*

They kiss for the first time when they wake up. Arthur comes over to his chair because Eames asks him to, and he leans down and Eames cups his cheeks and they just  _kiss_.

“Come here, love,” Eames breathes, and Arthur straddles Eames’s legs, presses their foreheads together. He kisses him again, wants more, always more and never enough, and Eames slides his hands under his shirt, pulls it off, reaching for the waistband of his pants and Arthur says  _not now_  and Eames listens.

Eames’s fingers ghost over the scar on his arm, traces its path up to his shoulder, leans forward and traces another down his back. Arthur trembles. Eames laughs the throaty laugh Arthur first fell in love with, and he thinks of fireflies.

*

Mal is no longer sick. Arthur doesn’t know what happened, but some time between the fireflies and now, Mal got better.

She teaches Philippa small words like “hi” and “bye” and “daddy,” and Arthur has the honor of being there every step of the way.

Eames never stays for long. Always long enough to get Arthur hooked, though, and most days, he’s left with a dull, unsatisfied feeling deep in his chest.

“You should stay with him,” Mal says. “You two would be happy.”

Arthur brushes his fingers over the thick-lettered label on the TV that reads  _turn off when done_  and the other by the closet that says  _jacket in here_ and thinks she’s mostly right.

*

Eames stays close. Every time he comes back, he tells Arthur of the times he’s spent all over the world, always somewhere new and fresh, Arthur’s favorite chameleon.

He has just come from Peru. He is happy and sated and he has missed Arthur, he can tell, because as soon as he comes inside, he wraps him up and pulls him to his chest and says “wonderful trip, let’s skip the small talk,” and kisses him.

Arthur beams under the affection and sits him down. He wants to ask him something very important, and Eames seems to be in just the right mood for Arthur to do so. “I want to live with you,” he says, very seriously, and he’s practiced this a million times so he hopes it comes out right.

“I am responsible and can clean up messes. I can cook, if you teach me. I can make coffee sometimes, too. I’ll always make the bed and I won’t take up a lot of room. And I can use the money from the jobs to help with bills. And when it’s winter –“ He trails off, lost in the midst of his words and he searches for them, tries to get them back, but before he can, Eames laughs and pulls him in and Arthur is so  _happy_  that he doesn’t even know what to do with himself.

“Yes, Arthur,” he says, because he knows that Arthur understands how they work, like gears and levers and pulleys, complementary and not always together at the same time, but always  _necessary_. “We’ll get a home nearby with a nice yard. Imagine the fireflies in the summertime, how lovely that will be,” he says, and Arthur could cry, he swears.

*

Eames takes care of the paperwork and Arthur takes care of the boxes. He labels things very precisely, carefully spelling out who each item belongs to and where it will go in the new house. He doesn’t know anything about domesticity, especially not with someone like Eames, but Mal tells him he’ll be fine. Happy, even, and he trusts her.

“I’ll come visit every day,” he promises. “And I can give you our phone number and we can call and talk and –“

“ _Arthur_ ,” Mal laughs, Philippa smiling up at him from Mal’s ankles. “You won’t be far. Of course we’ll see each other,” she smiles, and she leans in and kisses him on the cheek and Arthur waves at her dumbly before leaving.

*

For the first night, they sleep on a mattress on the floor. There’s enough room for the both of them to fit comfortably, especially when Eames holds him the way he does every night they’re together, but the fact that they’re on a  _floor_  makes everything much more uncomfortable.

On the first real day of being at home, Arthur wakes up with a backache and a migraine, and suspects Eames will wake up with the same. All the more reason to just stay in bed, Arthur thinks, because he doesn’t feel well today and he isn’t sure why.

Things are messy here at home. He knows that one day soon everything will be in an order Arthur can understand and follow, but right now, he doesn’t know where anything is and it terrifies him.

“Eames,” Arthur says, a bit too quietly when directed towards someone who could sleep through nearby construction. “ _Eames_ ,” he says again, standing there in the doorway with just his boxers on and looking like he might cry any minute.

He doesn’t bother saying his name again. Instead, he  _panics_ , full-blown and awful, because he can’t find his clothes, and if his dresser isn’t labeled, how will he know what to wear? How can he make coffee? Did they even have a coffee pot? Where was his razor? Shaving cream? How could he take a shower? Where the fuck did the bathroom go?

He tears open a box, dumping it out and rummaging through it frantically. He finds nothing of his. He does the same with a second box, a third, never once remembering that he’d labeled the sides, because this is Chris Pratt now, not Arthur.

His chest heaves and he’s crying now, no clue how to function without order, command. He needs his meds. His  _meds_ , fuck, he didn’t take them last night. Or this morning, and how can he be okay if he doesn’t have his meds – if he can’t even  _find_  them?

His heart is pounding and he reaches for another box, fingers pulling at the tape hysterically before he feels Eames’s arms around him. He’s warm with sleep, no doubt having just woken up, and he leans in, hand rubbing methodically over Arthur’s back, fingers dancing across the jut of his spine. They don’t move. For a long time, they don’t move at all. And then, Eames says, “Next time you go Tasmanian Devil on me, give me a warning, hm?” And Arthur doesn’t understand it, but he nods anyway, head in the crook of Eames’s neck and his heart in the clouds. “I can’t find my meds,” he tells him, his voice wavering with something that sounds too much like fear for Eames to be comfortable with.

“There are glasses on the kitchen counter. Get yourself some water, okay? I’ll find your meds,” Eames says, only pulling away when Arthur does. He watches him walk to the kitchen, can’t help staring at the curve of his spine, the narrow width of his waist, how  _tiny_  he could be, if he wanted to. And Eames could destroy him, could break him, because even if Arthur is too proud, he is still breakable, and Eames is terrified of what that means. The vulnerability could fit in the palm of his hand but the weight of it won’t ever sit right with him.

He unpacks the boxes with Arthur’s name on them, and feels a twinge of worry because, if Arthur panics like this again and can’t function  _at all_ , what does that mean for Eames? Could he leave him alone in the house without this happening again? He doesn’t know. He won’t know until it happens. And he knows it will, because Eames can’t stay anywhere for long.

He finds the meds easily, and he grabs the small container and the bottles of pills and brings them to the kitchen, sticking labels on the microwave and oven along the way.

“See?” Eames holds the medication up and hands it to him. “All better.”

But Arthur doesn’t quite think so, that same, familiar panic keeping him cautious, fearful, a bundle of nerves and Eames leans in and kisses him. “You’re all right, darling. I’m here, you’re okay. We’re in a beautiful home together, just you and I. We’re happy, yeah?” And Arthur nods, because he  _is_  happy, he’s just terrified at the same time.

*

Mal visits when Eames tells her the house is finished. The walls are in shades of creams and beiges, but the furniture is colorful and organized and it looks so nice, Arthur thinks, beautiful, their home.

Philippa waddles around the house observantly and makes herself comfortable under the dining room table. Arthur climbs under it and hunches over, sitting next to her.

“Do you think the house is pretty?” Arthur asks her.

Philippa chirps out a “yeah!” and Arthur smiles. She is nothing like her mother, but just as wonderful to be around.

*

Mal, Dom, and Philippa stay for dinner. Arthur helps Eames cook pasta, following instructions and labels, and he’s very proud of himself when it comes out edible.

“This is wonderful,” Mal remarks. Philippa has sauce on her face but she’s eating quite contently, and Dom is twirling his own pasta around his fork appreciatively.

“Thank you,” Eames says, swooping down to kiss her cheek. “Arthur did a fantastic job, didn’t he?”

Arthur blushes, cheeks flushed, and grins.

Mal smiles back at him, a secret smile just for him.

*

When Eames and Dom clean up in the kitchen, Mal follows Arthur to the bedroom. They have a proper bed now, big and comfortable and Mal climbs up and lays down, and Arthur lays next to her because this is what they do.

“I want to tell you something, Arthur,” she says quietly, wrapping herself around him. “I am having another baby.”

Arthur doesn’t know what this means.

“Are you going to be sick again?” He asks softly and Mal starts to cry.

He’s never seen her cry.

“I hope so,” she says, and Arthur cries, too.

*

Arthur tells Eames the second they leave.

“Mal is having another baby,” he says. “She’s going to get sick again, I know it. I don’t know what to do when she’s sick, she’s gonna – “

“Stop,” Eames says, cupping his face and leaning in. Eames smells like the pasta they just cooked, and Arthur must smell like Mal’s perfume, like daisies, like a five year-old girl with bubblegum lips, and he stops himself from talking. “You’re getting yourself worked up over nothing. Mal will be fine,” Eames says.

They don’t talk about it again.

*

Mal says, “How do I know if I’m dreaming? I won’t know unless I die, right?”

And Arthur says “yes.”

“My mother gave me a top when I was girl. It was an accidental gift. She meant it for my brother, for those sets with the jacks and ball, but somehow the top found its way in the set, which found its way to me. I hated it, but it was only ever mine.” She stares at him for a long time, lovingly and adoringly and she kisses his cheek. “What do you think will happen if I spin it? If I spin it in a dream, Arthur?”

Mal goes under for weeks. Arthur doesn’t ask her what happens to the top.

*

When Mal wakes up, she looks tired. She hasn’t slept, but she looks tired. Arthur lays down with her and she holds his hands and says, “you have learned so much, Arthur. You have  _achieved_  so much. You came into this stupid little project because you wanted to take a risk. You wanted something different.” She’s losing it, Arthur can tell. Her lines are blurring, bubblegum lips, and she could be a crazy woman right now and Arthur wouldn’t know, wouldn’t care. “When I spin the top in my dream, it spins forever. You should have something like that, like my top,” she nods. “I got you something.”

Arthur watches her reach into the bedside table drawer and pull out a small pouch. She drops it in Arthur’s lap and watches him curiously. “Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly,” she recites. “Isn’t that wonderful, Arthur? The life you’ve made for yourself by taking risks.” She watches him pull the die out, red, cherry lips, and he wiggles it in his palm. “Now, when you roll this die, you will know for sure if this risk is one you can have faith in.”

Arthur glances down at it, thumbs over the indentations. “You can never have faith in a risk,” he says, and Mal laughs.

“I knew you would love it.”

He does.

*

Arthur steals a PASIV.

Every night, right before bed, he dreams that he and Eames are driving and there are fireflies above their heads, and Mal and Dom are in the back seat and they’re all happy.

The car never crashes. They keep driving, down a road that never moves or changes, their hands in the air, fireflies against their palms, constellations in two skies, love in four hearts, and they drive.

These are the best dreams he has.

*

Arthur gets sick.

He follows suit, with Mal, and loses himself in dreams. He goes to her house, sleeps in her bed, dreams her dreams, and he knows now why she does it.

For a while, things blur for Arthur, too, but Eames pulls him out, back, wraps his arms around him and breathes against his neck and says  _darling, stay with me_  and he says goodbye to Mal, once and for all.

There is a different Mal he knows now, cherry lips, never bubblegum anymore, and she is a woman. A beautiful French woman and they are in Paris, in a dream, and there are tall buildings and high heels and a dress that sweeps over Mal’s knees. They work one job before James is born and this is it, this is everything. This is the Mal Dom will know only in fairytales. For Mal’s shoulders peek out from her black dress and she tilts her head and looks down and says  _I love this world the most_  and then  _please stay here with me_  and Arthur says  _yes_  and Dom says  _no_  and they wake up.

It is the first job Arthur fails at, the last he’ll remember vividly, and the only that means anything at all to him.

*

When James is born, Mal goes quiet.

When Arthur visits, he lays with Mal, but that’s it. They don’t talk anymore, not really, and Mal doesn’t hold him as much as she used to. She just sleeps, or pretends to, but the point is that Arthur never sees her eyes anymore, bubblegum lips, and he cries. And when he does, Mal does nothing.

He goes home to Eames, who holds him as close as he can, and there is still something missing that Arthur can’t name.

*

“I need to go away for a while,” Eames says. They are sitting at the kitchen table. Arthur made breakfast, all by himself, and coffee, too, but Eames doesn’t say anything about it. He just says this: I need to go away for a while, and Arthur repeats it in his mind before knowing what to say.

“Okay.”

Gears and pulleys and levers and Arthur never needs to know anything more than that he’s leaving. Eames can go wherever, whenever, and Arthur will wait because it’s easier to wait than follow and get lost.

He learns this from Mal.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Will you be okay here, by yourself?” He asks, and he is very serious, and Arthur realizes he has never lived alone. But he needs to be responsible, because he promised this to Eames before they moved in together. He has his labels and his notes and money, and Mal is just a few blocks away, so  _yes, I’ll be okay_  and Eames kisses him, hard and quick and leaves, just like that.

It takes four months for Arthur to remember Eames left at all. It takes another three to realize how much he misses him. But it only takes those first seven months that pass by too quickly, too slowly, that pass by  _at all_ for him to realize he has not seen Mal, either. And on that same day, when Arthur stays up for hours thinking of her,  _bubblegum lips_ , Dom calls him and bawls his eyes out, because Mal is dead, and Arthur thinks of fireflies and  _runs runs runs_  until he is lost, because it is easier to follow and get lost than wait for something that won’t come back.

*

When Eames comes back, it is for the funeral.

There is barely anything left of Mal to bury.

Arthur makes a note of this in his book and scribbles over the page in the colors of fire. His mouth burns, but he does not make a note of that.

Eames holds his hand, tight, there like an anchor because Arthur is very positive that he will sink if Eames lets go. Mal is gone, he tells himself. Mal is gone and she is never coming back.

She is never coming back.

Dom doesn’t say anything to him. He holds Philippa’s hand and James’s, too, and they pay their respects and they leave. And Arthur lays down in the grass, right next to where Mal would be if they were in bed, and he tells her about the fireflies, realizes that he never took her there, to that memory, to that secret place, and hates himself for it.

Eames lays down on the other side, and he reaches across the muddy outline of Mal’s grave and holds Arthur’s hand, and they stay that way for hours and Arthur sleeps.

*

It takes months for Dom to call him. He pulls Arthur on a series of jobs, and this is where Arthur knows to be professional, to act business-like and block everything else out, because it is important. They dream of impossible things, beautiful things, bubblegum things, because Mal is there every time and Arthur is only loyal to Dom because he was loyal to Mal, first.

*

Arthur comes home to Eames. He is sitting on the couch, arm across the back as if he was waiting for him. Arthur is exhausted to the point where he can barely move. His head is throbbing and he doesn’t want to be in this stupid suit anymore. His chest aches with grief, always there, always, always and he feels like he might cry.

Eames takes off his jacket for him, unties his tie, unbuttons his button-down, smooths his hands over Arthur’s undershirt and kisses him. “Come to bed,” he murmurs, and Arthur does.

He doesn’t sleep right away; he can’t. His mind won’t stop moving, running, spinning and jumping and he can’t stay still. He thinks of Mal, wonders if she was right about all of this, if she got to wake up when she jumped.

He gets out of bed in the middle of the night and finds his die, sits in the middle of the floor and rolls it. Again and again and again.

He thinks of Mal, how she trusted the risks he took simply because he was Arthur,  _her_  Arthur. He has faith in this, this silly notion that the weight of this die is his alone. It used to be his and Mal’s, and even if he never understood her or her ideas, this die is the one thing they shared that he can keep forever.

Unless you catch them in a jar, you can never keep fireflies, but this part of Mal, this risk-taking, reckless, bubblegum lips part of Mal, is all he has left.

*

The labels in his bedside drawer are the best notes he keeps.

He reads over them three days before Eames will tell him he’s leaving. He will read  _Lewis_  and then  _friend_ ; he will read  _Mal_ and then  _lovely_ ; he will read  _Dom_  and then  _build_. He will read  _Eames_  and  _Eames_  again. And once more, with  _fireflies_  taped to the back.

*

Eames leaves for Mombasa in the morning. All Arthur knows is where he’s going. It’s enough for him, if only because he knows Eames will come back eventually.

That morning, he wakes up.

He takes a shower, with soap.

He thinks of Eames and fireflies and Mal and what he used to be and what he is now. The label on the mirror tells him to shave, so he does. His dresser tells him to wear jeans and a sweater because it’s Tuesday, so he does.

But his labels and his notes don’t tell him what to do about the way he feels for Eames and how badly he misses him and –

\- he wakes up.

*

While Eames is gone, he will go on jobs with Dom. He will take notes and document their triumphs and their defeats. He will put money away for emergencies because Mal told him to be frivolous but safe. He will wait for Eames to come back and dream of fireflies when he is gone. He will mourn for Mal and for Chris Pratt and he will have the power because he is rich in something more important than money.

He will wake up.

He will take a shower, with soap.

He will meet a young woman named Ariadne, rose petal lips. Dom will bring Eames back for him (who kisses him and calls him  _darling_  and means it) and they will be together. He will see Mal in these dreams. He will tell Ariadne that she was lovely before she jumped. He will try to kiss the architect, but it will mean more to her than him, because when he leaves the airport, he will be going home with Eames to firefly dreams.

Eames will pour him some wine (which he shouldn’t have, but sometimes Eames lets him) and he will raise his glass and say  _to merry chases and a job well done_  and Arthur will say  _to fireflies_.

And they will drink.

_fin_.


End file.
